скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Then why did you bother to ask?’ Lily eyed him impatiently.
He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘I thought to amuse myself, perhaps.’
‘Indeed, my lord? And did you not find enough “amusements” in London these past nine months?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘And what would you know of my movements these past months?’
Lily felt the warmth of colour in her cheeks. ‘No matter what you might consider to the contrary, my lord, Castonbury is not completely cut off from civilisation!’ And besides, it was his sister Phaedra who had confided, in a whisper, that her brother was reputed to be enjoying the favours of many beautiful women, as well as frequenting the gambling and drinking dens!
The present Duke of Rothermere was rumoured to have once been a man who enjoyed all of the … amusements London had to offer, as well as some of the more local ones, so perhaps his second son was taking after him in enjoying those often less than respect able pursuits?
He gave an exasperated shake of his head. ‘Unless you have forgotten, I spent my early years growing up here.’
Lily tilted her chin proudly. ‘I have not forgotten anything about you, my lord.’
His mouth thinned. ‘Including, no doubt, my words to you a year ago!’
‘Most especially I will never forget those, my lord,’ she assured him before turning to push open the gate for herself as Giles Montague made no effort to do so.
‘Never is a very long time, Lily.’
‘You—Oh, bother!’ Lily had turned sharply back to face him, catching her parcel on the gatepost as she did so, and succeeding in knocking it from her arms and to the ground. She huffed at her own clumsiness even as she bent down to retrieve the parcel.
Giles, having intended on doing the same, instead found himself wincing as their two heads met painfully together, Lily’s brow coming into sharp contact with the hardness of his chin. Unfortunately it was in the exact same spot as his friend Milburn’s fist had landed six days previously!
‘Oh, my word!’ The dropped parcel forgotten, Lily now raised a gloved hand to her obviously painful brow, those moss-green eyes having filled with tears.
Giles pushed aside his own discomfort to quickly discard his cane and reach out to grasp the tops of her arms as he looked down at her anxiously. ‘Let me see!’ He pushed her hand aside, a frown darkening his own brow as he saw the bump that was already forming under her delicate skin. ‘Do not poke and prod at it!’ he instructed sternly as he clasped her gloved fingers firmly in his own even as they crept to the painful spot.
Giles tensed as he became aware of the warmth of Lily’s fingers through the thin lace of her glove, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts against the bodice of her grey gown, her pulse beating rapidly at the base of her slender neck, and when Giles raised his gaze it was to see Lily catch the full redness of her bottom lip between tiny white teeth.
Because of the painful bump to her forehead? Or something else …?
Green eyes now looked up at him in questioning confusion from between long and silky black lashes. ‘My lord …?’ she breathed huskily.
The very air about them seemed to have stilled, even the birds in the trees seemed to have ceased their singing to look down, watchful, expectant, upon the two people standing in a frozen tableau beneath them.
Giles drew a ragged breath into his starved lungs, aware as he did so of his own rapidly beating heart pounding in his ears. Because he could feel the warmth of Lily’s hand against his own? Look down upon the rapid rise and fall of her creamy breasts above the curved neckline of her gown? Smell the lightness of her floral perfume on her smooth, ivory skin?
Giles’s nostrils flared at this sudden, unwelcome awareness as he released her before stepping back abruptly. ‘We should go in now, your brow will need the application of a cold compress to stop the worst of the swelling,’ he told her grimly.
‘My parcel …!’ She attempted to retrieve it.
‘Hang your parcel—’
Glistening green eyes glared up at Giles as he would have prevented her from reaching for the parcel. ‘It is the material for my new gown, and I do not intend to leave it outside for the birds to peck at or the rain to fall upon—’
‘Oh, very well.’ Giles made no effort to hide his impatience as he bent down to gather up the parcel before handing it to her. ‘Now can we go inside?’ he prompted harshly as he picked up his ebony cane, his expression grim.
Lily had absolutely no idea what had happened, only knowing that something most assuredly had.
Giles Montague had looked at her just now as if seeing her for the first time, his eyes no longer that cold silver-grey but instead burning a deep and unfathomable colour of pewter. They were eyes that had swept across the swell of her breasts, the pale column of her throat, before coming to rest on the fullness of her lips. The intensity of his gaze had caused Lily to catch at her bottom lip with her teeth.
Even more puzzling had been her own response to the intensity of that gaze….
For several moments it had seemed as if they might be the only two people in the world, even breathing had been too much of an effort; the blood in Lily’s veins had seemed to burn, her breasts had felt full and sensitive inside her gown.
She had taken note of every hard plane of his aristocratic face—the intelligent brow, those heated grey eyes, a long slash of a nose between high cheekbones, those firm and sculptured lips slightly parted above the square strength of his jaw. Considering all of these attributes, Lily found herself acknowledging Giles Montague as being a breathtakingly handsome man!
Giles Montague.
The arrogant and disdainful Giles Montague.
The hated and despised Lord Giles Montague.
It was unbelievable, unacceptable, that Lily should have such thoughts about a man who had never made any effort to hide the contempt he felt towards her.
She clutched her parcel tightly to her breasts as she turned and walked the small distance down the pathway before opening the door and entering the vicarage. ‘My father is no doubt in his study writing his sermon for Sunday,’ she dismissed with a complete lack of manners as she stared at the top button of Giles Montague’s waistcoat rather than at the hard planes of his face.
‘You will see to putting a cold compress on your forehead immediately.’ Again there was no question or suggestion from Giles Montague, only that cold inflexibility of will that Lily had come to expect from him.
Her chin rose as she looked up at him. ‘I will decide what I will or will not do, my lord!’
His grey eyes narrowed to silver slits. ‘You already have a bump on your forehead half the size of a hen’s egg. Do not make it any worse out of stubborn defiance of me!’
Lily drew her breath in sharply. ‘You are arrogant, sir, to assume your opinion on anything would ever affect my own behaviour one way or the other!’
‘Arrogant? Possibly,’ Giles acknowledged with a derisive inclination of his head. ‘But, in this particular case, I have no doubt I am necessarily so,’ he added drily, heartily relieved to realise that he and Lily Seagrove had returned to the natural state of affairs between them.
Her cheeks flushed with irritation and her eyes flashed. ‘You—’
‘What on earth is—Oh, Lord Giles?’ Mr Seagrove looked slightly perplexed as he stood in the now-open doorway to the family parlour and recognised the gentleman standing in the darkness of his hallway. ‘And Lily …’ The vicar looked even more puzzled as he saw his daughter standing slightly behind Lord Giles.
‘Lord Montague and I met outside, Father,’ Lily spoke up firmly before ‘Lord Montague’ had any opportunity to say anything that might add to her father’s air of confusion.
Once seated at the kitchen table in order to allow the clucking Mrs Jeffries to apply a cold compress to the bump on her forehead—not because Giles Montague had instructed that she do so but because it was the right and sensible thing to do!—Lily could not help but think again of those few minutes of awareness as she stood outside the vicarage with Giles Montague….
Chapter Four
‘So exciting! I am sure Monsieur André is beside himself at the thought of baking all those delicious cakes for the garden party! And Mrs Stratton has us all polishing and cleaning the silver until we can see our faces in it,’ Daisy, a plump and pretty housemaid at Castonbury Park, chattered on excitedly. ‘Do you think the old Gypsy woman will be there again this year to tell our fortunes? Oh, I do hope so! Last year she said a tall, dark and handsome stranger would sweep me off my feet. I haven’t chanced to meet him yet, but I live in hopes—’
It was now two days since Lily had literally clashed heads with Giles Montague outside the vicarage, and having already made several calls in the village on her way to Castonbury Park today, she was now only half listening to Daisy as the maid chattered non-stop on the walk down the hallway in the direction of Mrs Stratton’s parlour.
‘She prefers to be called a Romany. And her name is Mrs Lovell,’ Lily supplied, the making of her new gown and the well-dressing celebrations having taken up more of her own thoughts and time than she would have believed possible, as she dealt with the wealth of arrangements to be put in place before the ceremony next week.
She had also, after more enquiries from curious neighbours than she cared to answer, found a style for her hair which managed to cover the discolouration which still remained upon her brow despite the swelling having disappeared.
Daisy’s ‘tall, dark and handsome stranger’ could easily be a description of Giles Montague. Lily’s own dislike of that gentleman did not appear to have prevented her from acknowledging that he was indeed tall, dark and very handsome. After twelve years away from home, with only infrequent visits back to Derbyshire, he could also be considered something of a ‘stranger’ to most of the people in Castonbury. Daisy was certainly young enough not to have too many recollections of him.
Giles Montague’s return had now resulted in the whole of the estate and household staff being ‘swept off their feet,’ as he began to issue orders and instructions for the work he considered needed to be done before Castonbury Park opened its gates to the village for the well-dressing celebrations the following week.
‘Oh, I hope I did not cause offence, Lily!’ Daisy’s embarrassed expression revealed that she was aware of the things said in the village concerning Lily’s true parents. ‘It’s just that Agnes said she saw one of the pretty Gypsy caravans on the other side of the lake yesterday. And the Gypsy—the Romany, Mrs Lovell,’ she corrected with a self-conscious giggle, ‘is so wonderful at telling fortunes, that I hoped it was her. It’s my afternoon off today, so maybe I’ll take a walk over that way and see for myself—’
Lily also wondered if the caravan might belong to Mrs Lovell, that elderly lady usually arriving at Castonbury several weeks ahead of her tribe, and so giving her the opportunity to go about the village selling the clothes pegs and baskets she had made through the winter months. Her fortune-telling had also been a feature of the well-dressing celebrations ever since Lily could remember. Whether or not those fortunes ever came true did not seem to matter to the people in the village, as they, like Daisy, simply enjoyed the possibility that they might—
Lily’s wandering thoughts came to an abrupt end as she heard the sound of raised voices from down the hallway. Or rather, a single raised voice….
‘—do not say I did not warn you all! And do not come crying to me when he succeeds in killing His Grace!’ There was the sound of a door being forcibly slammed.
‘Uh-oh, it’s Mr Smithins, and he sounds as if he’s on the warpath again!’ Daisy whispered in alarm as she clutched Lily’s arm. ‘I’d better get back to me polishing!’ She beat a hasty retreat back to the kitchen just as Smithins appeared at the end of the hallway, the scowl on his face evidence of his bad temper.
A short, thin and balding man, he possessed an elegance of style about his demeanour and dress that some might consider foppish. Lily had observed that he was also something of a despot in regard to the other household servants at Castonbury Park, considering himself far above them in his position as personal valet to the Duke of Rothermere. Hence Daisy’s hurried departure back to her work in the kitchen; Smithins was perfectly capable of boxing the young maid’s ears if he felt so inclined!
His scowl deepened as he strode down the hallway and caught sight of Lily watching him.
She grimaced self-consciously as she felt herself forced into speech. ‘Is anything amiss, Mr Smithins?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Mark my words, it will all end in tears!’ he muttered as he pushed past her before continuing on his way without apology.
Lily felt slightly unnerved as she turned to look at the valet, but more by his angry claim of some unnamed person ‘killing His Grace’ than his rude behaviour to her just now. What on earth could have happened for Smithins to—
‘Ah, Lily,’ Mrs Stratton sighed wearily as she appeared in the doorway of her parlour and saw Lily standing outside in the hallway. ‘Do please come in,’ she invited softly.
Lily hesitated. ‘I have obviously called at a bad time …’
‘Not at all,’ the older woman assured wryly. ‘Smithins is volatile of temperament, I am afraid,’ she continued as Lily slowly entered the cosy parlour.
‘But … he seemed so vehement …?’
Mrs Stratton shook her head. ‘He is merely annoyed because Lord Giles refuses to heed his advice concerning His Grace.’
Lord Giles? Smithins’s warning just now had been a reference to Giles Montague’s behaviour in regard to his father?
The housekeeper sighed. ‘His latest concern seems to be the carriage ride His Grace is to take with Lord Giles this afternoon.’
Lily’s eyes widened. ‘Is His Grace well enough for a carriage ride?’
‘He has seemed much improved this past day or so,’ Mrs Stratton assured. ‘I am sure that a change of scenery will be far more beneficial to him than sitting alone in his rooms day after day, and allowing his nerves to get the better of him.’
Possibly, but it was only the end of April, and the chill wind blew off the Derbyshire hills still. ‘My father has been invited to dine with His Grace and Lord Giles this evening.’ Indeed, the invitation to dine at Castonbury Park this evening had been the only thing Mr Seagrove had been willing to impart to Lily concerning Giles Montague’s visit to him two days ago!
The older woman frowned slightly. ‘I understood the invitation was for both you and Mr Seagrove …’
It had been. It still was. But as Lily could not imagine Giles Montague really wanting to spend an evening in her company—as she had no desire to spend an evening in his—she had been sure that her inclusion in the invitation had only been made out of politeness to her father, and as such she had intended making the excuse of having a headache this evening when it came time to leave for Castonbury Park.
But having heard Smithins’s warning just now, perhaps she should reconsider that decision?
‘I really should pay no mind to Smithins if I were you, Lily.’ Mrs Stratton gave a rueful grimace as she seemed to read Lily’s hesitation, even if she had misunderstood the reason for it. ‘I am afraid he has been allowed to become far too overbearingly protective this past year where His Grace is concerned.’ She gave a weary sigh. ‘I have long been forced to listen to his ravings for one reason or another.’
That may be so, but Lily seriously doubted that those ‘ravings’ had ever been about Lord Giles Montague before this week, or involved an accusation of him ‘succeeding in killing’ his own father. ‘Do you think there is any basis for truth in Mr Smithins’s concerns for His Grace?’
‘None at all,’ the housekeeper dismissed briskly. ‘Lord Giles has always been the most dutiful of sons.’
Had it been ‘dutiful’ of Giles Montague to remain in London these past nine months when he had been needed here at Castonbury Park? Was it ‘dutiful’ of him, now that he had at last returned, to be seen to take his father, a man who was obviously fragile in health, out on a carriage ride? Admittedly, he now seemed to be taking a belated interest in the estate, but—
‘Besides, you will see for yourself this evening how His Grace fares.’ Mrs Stratton smiled. ‘And I know that Monsieur André is greatly looking forward to preparing some more of the meringues after I told him how much you enjoyed them when you were here last,’ she added with a twinkle in her eye.
Lily felt the colour warm her cheeks at Mrs Stratton’s more than obvious attempt at matchmaking. She had only seen the new French chef once or twice since his arrival at Castonbury Park, although she had noticed on those occasions that he was handsome. Even so, Lily very much doubted that even a French chef would be willing to overlook her questionable pedigree.
‘But I am sure you did not come here to discuss this evening’s menu with me …?’ Mrs Stratton prompted lightly.
Lily gave herself a mental shake as she was reminded of her reason for calling. ‘I was in the village and was waylaid by Mr Crutchley as I passed the butcher’s shop. He said he has not yet received an order from you for the traditional pig to roast.’ The ladies of the village would no doubt enjoy partaking of the delicacies provided by Monsieur André, but the men were all of hardy farming stock, and as such required a heartier repast for their tea than the sandwiches and cakes the French chef would be providing.
The housekeeper looked slightly perplexed. ‘I understood from Lord Giles that he intended to talk to Mr Crutchley personally.’
‘Lord Giles?’ Lily repeated slowly. ‘But … I do not understand.’
Mrs Stratton smiled indulgently. ‘I believe the pig roast is to be his own gift to the celebrations.’
‘I—Well. That is very generous of him.’ Lily still frowned her puzzlement.
‘Indeed,’ the housekeeper agreed warmly. ‘He has stated that he also intends to provide the liquid refreshment for the gentlemen.’
To say Lily was surprised at Giles Montague’s personal largesse would be putting it mildly; as far as she was aware, he had not shown any interest before now in the welfare and happiness of the people living in the village of Castonbury.
But he had not become his father’s heir until Lord Jamie’s demise either.
Was she being completely fair to Giles Montague, Lily wondered as she walked back to the vicarage, or was she perhaps allowing her own prejudice of feelings towards that gentleman to colour her thoughts and emotions?
Thankfully she had not seen Giles Montague again in the past two days, but he had been the subject of much discussion in the village.
She had heard from several of the women how their eldest sons had been taken on for the summer months so that the fallow fields at the Park might be prepared for a winter crop. Another had commented that her carpenter husband had been employed to effect repairs upon several of the barns to ready them for the storing of the harvest to come. A builder had been seen up on the roof of Castonbury Park itself to repair several tiles that had fallen off in the severe winter storms.
All of it was work that Giles Montague had apparently instructed to be carried out.
Perhaps her criticisms of him had had some effect, after all—
No, a more likely explanation was that Giles Montague already considered himself master here!
Could there, after all, be some truth in Smithins’s earlier warning to Mrs Stratton regarding the Duke of Rothermere? Was Giles Montague deliberately endangering his father’s already precarious health, in the hopes that he might become the presumptive Duke of Rothermere sooner rather than later?
Lily had no answer to those questions. One thing she was certain of, however; she no longer intended suffering so much as the twinge of a headache to prevent her from dining at Castonbury Park this evening!
‘I must thank you for sending John and the carriage for us, Lord Giles.’ Mr Seagrove beamed as Lumsden showed the vicar and his daughter into the formal salon that evening. He was wearing his usual clerical black, his daughter looking slender and graceful in a gown of deep blue. ‘I am afraid my open carriage is not at all suitable for going out in the evenings, and our horse now so old that he is not inclined to go out after dark either.’
‘Not at all,’ Giles drawled dismissively. ‘I could not risk Miss Seagrove suffering a chill.’
A chill which was all in those moss-green eyes, Giles discovered with a frown as he bent formally over Lily’s gloved hand before glancing up to see her looking back at him with icy coldness. Not a particularly good omen for what Giles had hoped would be an evening free of the tensions he had been forced to suffer earlier today whilst out visiting with his father!
